Asia Fuel Oil-Holidays, lower crude prices weigh

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Holiday blues affected the Asian fuel oil market with no trades and no offers for 180-centistoke high-sulphur fuel in the Singapore trading hub on Wednesday, traders said.It was a public holiday in Singapore in Tuesday and there will be a public holiday in Japan on Thursday "Quite a number of players are still on leave," said one Singapore fuel oil trader. A drop in crude oil prices during Asian trading hours also weighed on sentiment in the narrower fuel oil market amid an overhang in global oil supplies. The expectation oil prices would fall made the market wary of trading."Yep - most were expecting it," the trader added.The forward contango for 380-centistoke high-sulphur fuel remained unchanged for a second straight session on Wednesday The Aug/Sept contango stayed at a discount of 75 cents a tonne, while Sept/Oct was at minus 50 cents a tonne to Singapore quotes. Cash discounts also came under pressure amid indications Asia's premier ship-refuelling hub was well supplied with fuel oil which saw a slight gain, according to a weekly inventory report by the Singapore government last Thursday. "Some of the key suppliers were back in the window today and were offering the market down, compared with Monday, which put some pressure on cash discounts," a second Singapore trader said. Offers in the Platts window ranged between plus $1 and $3 on Monday, but fell as low as minus $1 across the assessment window on Wednesday. Source : Reuters (Additional reporting by Roslan Khasawneh; Editing by Dale Hudson)